The United States has imposed new tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners, including the European Union and China, accusing them of failing to curb imports made with forced labor. The move came as a temporary 10% global tariff expired.
The tariffs mark the White House’s first major step toward rebuilding President Donald Trump’s broad tariff policy after the U.S. Supreme Court in February struck down his “reciprocal” tariffs of 10% to 50%, which had been imposed last year under emergency powers to reduce the U.S. trade deficit.
The new duties, announced in a Federal Register notice, cover 99.4% of U.S. imports, though several products—including oil and gas, fertilizer, and certain food items, are exempt.
Washington argued that many trading partners had failed to effectively prevent goods produced with forced labor from entering global supply chains, an allegation those countries deny.
“The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it. It’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement on Friday.
“Today’s action will begin to correct what is both a human rights abuse and a distortive trade practice to improve the welfare of workers everywhere.”
The tariffs were imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, allowing the administration to maintain a broad tariff regime despite the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The U.S. imposed a 10% tariff on imports from Argentina, Bangladesh, Britain, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and Tobago, saying those countries had laws or plans to ban forced labor imports but were not enforcing them effectively.
The European Union, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Switzerland were assigned tariff rates that, when combined with existing most-favored-nation duties, total either 10% or 12.5%.
The remaining 38 countries, including Vietnam and China, were subjected to a 12.5% tariff. The U.S. cited China’s alleged detention of Uyghur minorities in labor camps—an accusation Beijing has repeatedly denied.
Vietnam, meanwhile, recently introduced stricter regulations banning imports made with forced labor.
Greer had previously assured countries with trade agreements limiting U.S. tariff rates that the new duties would not exceed those negotiated caps, a point welcomed by the European Union.
“The EU notes positively the fact that this outcome is in line with the U.S. tariff commitments agreed under the EU-U.S. Joint Statement,” a European Commission spokesperson said, adding that the decision provides “positive momentum” for further discussions on tariff exemptions and deeper trade cooperation.
Although the new tariffs had been widely anticipated, many U.S. trading partners rejected Washington’s justification, arguing they had taken steps to combat forced labor in their supply chains.
Some countries, however, noted that the new measures would have little impact on existing tariff levels and, in some cases, represented a slight improvement.